Sunday, March 20, 2011

The Winged Eye: Liquid or Pencil Liner Make-up Review

One of the fun aspects of wearing vintage is getting to play around with those great make-up looks. One of my favorites is the winged eye or the cat-eye. If you're unsure of how to create this look click here for a great tutorial from Lisa Freemont Street. Creating this look can be a little tricky, but with the right product it can make the process much easier. I've been trying out a lot of different liners lately to find one that works for me. I tried the following liners: Stila's smudge stick waterproof eyeliner in Stringray, Wet n Wild Mega Liner color 861, and Revlon ColorStay liquid liner in Blackest Black and this is what I've found (from most expensive to least):

Please note that all products I review are cruelty free.

Stila: I wanted to try a good traditional pencil eyeliner as the liquid ones can sometimes be a little hard to control. For me to execute a great winged eye look I need to be able to easily do a flick and swish at the corner of the outer eye. With a pencil I was not able to do this, it felt difficult and the result was messy and uneven. Essentially I was like a kindergardener with a crayon...not a look I was going for. As a regular liner for above/below the lashes it's great. What I did like is I was able to wipe off any mistakes with a tissue, but yet it dried in a reasonable amount of time. Overall it's a good product, but not for the look I was going for.

Revlon: Now I was back in the liquid liners, and spoiler alert...this one was my favorite! The brush is firm with just a little bend which helped me keep control of my brush strokes. It also was not bristles so you don't have to worry about a bristle going all cock-eyed and leaving little black trails everywhere. It didn't dry too quickly so you were able to clean up the line with a tissue and it doesn't bleed onto your upper lid when you fully open your eye. Overall great price and easy to use and control.

Wet n Wild: I liked that it was a liquid and brushed on smooth and easy, but after that things didn't go so well. A little like a bad blind date...starts off good but the more they talk the worse things get. This is where it went wrong: a few of the bristles on the brush got kinked and started leaving little black dots all over my eyelid, often my hands get a little shaky when applying liner and with such a flexible brush I frequently found myself "coloring outside the lines", and when I fully opened my eyes I found that the liner bled onto my upper lid creating a slightly crazed look. Overall myself and Wet n Wild where not a match made in heaven.

This is extremely helpful for me. I've been struggling with eyeliners for quite awhile. The best ones that seem to work for me are the felt tip ones but they take a lot of practice and control to get it down. I have spent so much money on eyeliners and my greatest issue with them is the fact that they usually always somehow disappear very quickly throughout the day, especially on my lower lash line. I'm trying to find a good pencil eyeliner for that area so that it STAYS on. As for the top winged look, I think I will definitely check out the Revlon this weekend. Thanks!